ASP (Vipers aspis), a species of venomous snake, closely allied to the common adder of Great Britain, which it represents throughout the southern parts of Europe, being specially ant in the region of the Alps. It differs from the adder in having the head entirely covered with scales, shields being absent, and in having the snout somewhat turned up. The term "Asp" as it is used in literature is applied to several species of poisonous snake, that by which Cleopatra is said to have ended her life is generally supposed to have been the cerastes, or horned viper (Cerastes cornutus), of northern Africa and Arabia, a snake about I sin. long, exceedingly venomous, and provided with curious horn-like protuberances over each eye. The snake, however, to which the word "asp" has been most commonly applied is the haje of Egypt, the spy-slange or spitting-snake of the Boers (Naja haje), one of the very poisonous Elapidae, from 3 to 4ft. long, with the skin of its neck loose, so as to render it dilatable at the will of the animal, as in the cobra of India, a species from which it differs only in the absence of the spectacle-like mark on the back of the neck. Like the cobra, the haje has its fangs extracted by jugglers, who afterwards train it to perform various tricks.